2 April 2015
From the section Entertainment & Arts
Burton wrote her book over four years while working as an actress and PA
The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton’s award-winning bestseller, is one of 10 titles in contention for a £10,000 prize for debut novelists.
Another best-selling title, Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey, has also made it on to the longlist for this year’s Desmond Elliott Prize.
Also in contention is The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth, the first crowd-funded title to feature on the longlist.
A shortlist will be revealed on 15 May, with the winner announced on 1 July.
The Miniaturist tells of a young bride in 17th Century Amsterdam whose miniature replica of her own house begins to mirror events in her own life.
Burton’s debut was named Waterstones Book of the Year in December and went on to be crowned Specsavers Book of the Year later that month.
Healey won the Costa first novel award for Elizabeth is Missing, a mystery about an elderly sleuth struggling with dementia.
The book is also on the longlist for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, as is Laline Paull’s The Bees, another Desmond Elliott hopeful.
Kingsnorth calls The Wake “a slightly strange beast… written entirely in its own language”
Kingsnorth’s Booker-longlisted novel is another nominee to have enjoyed awards success elsewhere, having won the £5,000 Gordon Burn Prize in October.
The book, set in the Anglo-Saxon period, was published after 400 readers pledged money to a crowdfunding campaign.
Named after the late publisher and literary agent, the Desmond Elliott Prize was first …read more
Source:: BBC Entertainment
